Mum Takes Back Husband Who Raped Daughter, Says God Wants Daughter to Forgive Him

Little Becky Herbert, now 20, suffered four years of almost nightly rape by her paedophile father, David Manning, before he was prosecuted and jailed.

47-year-old Manning, who claims to be a Christian, repeatedly crept into her room to molest her, groping her from the age of 9 and turning to rape when she turned 11. A traumatized Becky said she tried to hang herself when she was 15; it was about this time that David’s crimes came to light and he was sentenced to jail for nine years.

Becky is furious as Manning has been freed after serving half of his sentence and has also been spotted back at the family home. According to Mirror UK, officials gave Manning’s return the green light, despite two of Becky’s siblings still living at home.

More infuriating for Becky, however, is that her mum, Mandy Manning aged 47, same as David, allegedly believes God wants both her and Becky to forgive him. Becky says:

“I love my mum but she’s told me that the past is the past and the Bible says I should forgive those who have sinned against me. I can never forgive the man who did this to me – never. He ¬completely destroyed me. I still wake in the night, shaking and drenched in sweat. I’m not sure I can bear to have a baby since he showed me the evil an innocent child can suffer.”

Horrified Becky believes a hard-line evangelical church persuaded Mandy to rekindle her relationship with twisted David Manning.

The sales assistant who uses bakery worker Mandy’s maiden name to avoid being linked to her attacker, spent her childhood reading the Bible and going to Christian holiday camps. She was told sex before marriage was a sin even while she lived in fear of falling pregnant by her evil dad. She recalls:

“Every month I felt sick with worry. But who would believe the word of a little girl against that of a man who read the Bible and went to church on Sundays?”

She however retains fond childhood memories of her mum, saying:

“I loved nothing more than going on shopping trips with her and she made such a fuss of me when it was my birthday.”

But factory worker Manning shattered her happiness when her body began to mature aged nine. She recalls:

“He would grope my chest and I hated it. He told me he was just checking I was developing properly. I didn’t know any better, so I accepted it.”

When Becky was 11 her dad raped her for the first time while Mandy was at work.

“I was on the bed playing with my teddies. Before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled my trousers down. I didn’t understand what rape was but I knew what he was doing was wrong. I begged him to stop but he didn’t listen. Afterwards I was in agony and shaking. I pulled my quilt over my head and hugged my teddy,” she recalls.

Becky suffered in silence for the next four years;

“I’d wake up in the middle of the night to find him lying on top of me. I begged him not to rape me but he told me it was our little secret. It affected every aspect of my life. I wanted to die. One day I got my school tie and wrapped it around my neck in the playground. I was wondering if I could reach to hang myself from the school gates. A friend stopped me but I didn’t tell her what was wrong.”

She finally let it all out at the age of 15 while at a Christian camp in Cornwall.

“We were singing hymns when I burst into tears and ran off. A friend followed me but I couldn’t find the words to tell her so I wrote it down. She showed it to a camp leader and I was driven to a police station.”

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Manning admitted seven sex offences, including rape, at Plymouth Crown Court in 2010. But this did not dissuade Mandy from loving her paedophile husband. Becky said:

“It wasn’t long before the church pastor suggested Mum should forgive Dad. He said she should love her husband more than she loved her children because we would all soon grow up and leave her. I felt utterly betrayed. She’d visit him in prison and ask if I wanted her to give him a hug from me. She’d tell me I should forgive dad. She said that’s what Jesus would want. I was absolutely gobsmacked.”

Sadly Becky felt pushed to the wall and had to leave home:

“The final straw came when the pastor suggested I’d made it all up because Dad was strict.I left home. I loved my mum, but I couldn’t live with her if she wanted me to forgive my dad.”

Manning was released for good behavior this year. Becky said:

“When I heard he had gone back where my siblings still live I’ve never been so angry. I punched a wall so hard my knuckles bled. How could Mum think it was safe to let them sleep under the same roof as a pedophile, no matter what the church told her?”

Although a court order bans him from contacting Becky until 2019, the Ministry of Justice endorsed Manning as fit to move back into the family home with immediate effect. Becky, who is engaged to her factory worker boyfriend Jeff Bridges, 35, says,

“That means I can’t visit my mum. We can’t have a proper relationship until she accepts I can never forgive him. She has chosen my rapist over me.”

Mandy on the other hand denied David was staying with her and claims that there are no children living in the house. She has however, sent criticizing text messages to her daughter Becky, on her decision to speak out against her father, accusing her of “dragging up a painful episode.” She concluded: “Consider yourself an orphan.”